Holocaust Memorial Day (UK)
Music throughout the ceremony was provided by a diverse range of acts including Darfuri singer Shurooq Abu el Nas, the Choir of Clare College Cambridge, the London Klezmer Quartet and violinist Jennifer Pike.
Participants included now King, then Charles, Prince of Wales and his wife current Queen, then Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, the UK Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition; the Chief Rabbi and the Archbishop of Canterbury; and actors Adrian Lester, John Hurt, Michael Palin, Keeley Hawes, Sarah Lancashire, Christopher Eccleston, and Laurence Fox.
Guests at the reception included the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, the three main Westminster party leaders, the Archbishop of Canterbury, celebrity contributors to the ceremony and members of the Prime Minister's Holocaust Commission.
In 2010, Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn co-chaired an event at the Houses of Parliament in which Holocaust analogies were used to criticise the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians, with the main talk by anti-Zionist Auschwitz survivor, 9/11 conspiracy theorist, and Pearl Harbor conspiracy theorist, Hajo Meyer.
[17] The event was criticised by Jon Benjamin, Board of Deputies chief executive, who said: "This latest attempt to exploit the most painful chapter in Jewish history in order to berate and demonise Israel is among the most despicable.
"[18] One audience member, the Holocaust survivor Rubin Katz, said that "the room was brimming with raging hatred, directed at Israel and Jews.
"[17][18] Since 1996, 27 January has officially been Gedenktag für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus (Day of Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialism) in Germany.
On 10 June 1999, Andrew Dismore MP asked Prime Minister Tony Blair about the creation of memorial day for the Holocaust.
In reply, Tony Blair also referred to the ethnic cleansing that was being witnessed in the Kosovo War at that time and said: I am determined to ensure that the horrendous crimes against humanity committed during the Holocaust are never forgotten.
On 27 January 2000, representatives from forty-four governments around the world met in Stockholm to discuss Holocaust education, remembrance and research.
[31] Despite initially refusing to confirm whether or not they would take part in the 2010 commemoration,[32] they eventually voted to send a junior representative, Shuja Shafi, to attend the event in London.
[34] Neil Frater, an official from Tony Blair's Race Equality Unit, a branch of the Home Office, replied that it had consulted the Holocaust Memorial Day Steering Group on the issue and had agreed that while it understood that the Armenian Genocide was an "appalling tragedy", it wanted to "avoid the risk of the message becoming too diluted if we try to include too much history.
Zaven Messerlian, the principal of the Armenian Evangelical College in Beirut, Lebanon, stated that "any serious commemoration must include the aetiology of genocide, particularly those of the twentieth century, especially if one encouraged the next.
Armenians contended that the British government held out for so long because it wished to preserve its relationship with the successor state of the Ottoman Empire and NATO ally, Turkey.
